LEGACIES

Airborne operations resulted in some of the most dramatic missions of the Second World War. Despite the difficulties of inserting large numbers of paratroops into a compact area and of tenuous logistics and supply, airborne surprise attack continued to be employed throughout the conflict. Although Allied airborne forces around Caen and Utah Beach in France played a special role in the Normandy invasion, airborne attacks never seemed to be as decisive as mission planners had hoped. Nonetheless, airborne forces developed a formidable fighting reputation, not only in initial paratroop drops but also as part of the regular ground forces while fighting continued. 

Airborne assaults proved far more successful in the CBI theater, where dense jungle and rugged terrain—plus command of the air—added to the element of surprise for the attacking forces and blunted the defender’s ability to mount a counteroffensive. Additionally, the AAF supplied many of the air transports that participated in combined operations with British forces in Burma and on the Malay Peninsula. These aerial sorties proved effective in maintaining ongoing British offensives even when Japanese forces appeared to threaten them. But the Japanese, at the end of a long, overland logistical tail, often faltered in the face of determined Allied airlift assets. 

Statistically, the ATC emerged from the war a veritable powerhouse. By August 1945, troop strength reached 209,201 military personnel, plus 104,667 civilians. The ATC fleet of thirty-seven hundred aircraft operated an aerial network stretching 180,000 miles, reaching virtually everywhere in the world. The ATC’s activities had changed intercontinental air travel from a state of high-risk adventure to a matter of daily routine. At its peak of operations, ATC aircraft crossed the Atlantic at an average rate of one every thirteen minutes. In the process, the time required to cover distances around the world shrank dramatically, from a matter of weeks to a few days or, within a theater, to a few hours. 

Before the war, American Airlines fielded one of the largest aviation transport fleets in the United States, with about seventy-nine airplanes. In the postwar era the size of all airlines in the United States increased. The experience of tracking the far-flung routes of the ATC and of building and managing its complex infrastructure made postwar challenges seem far less daunting. C. R. Smith’s air fleet numbered several hundred after the war, with more elaborate commercial routes, more personnel, and more four-engine airplanes. The airline benefited from Smith’s ATC experience, and other airlines realized similar benefits from their wartime service. The smoothly running operations of airline routes in the United States and around the globe represented a significant legacy in terms of well-trained managers and the many TCC and ATC fliers and navigators who piloted civil transports on routes they had helped develop during wartime. Highly trained mechanics, meteorologists, electronics specialists, and other personnel also found employment with the airlines. And the many wartime airfields scraped out around the rims of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans could and would be used by postwar civil transports—yet another benefit of airlift technology as it evolved during World War II. 

Wartime operations certainly demonstrated the value of airlift assets. Civil airliner designs continued to equip many squadrons during the early postwar years, but it had become clear that the AAF needed specific kinds of aircraft designed expressly to fulfill military airlift missions. Even before the end of World War II, aeronautical firms began addressing these requirements with twin-engine and four-engine transports. Fairchild’s proposal for the C–82 Packet marked a new era of dedicated military transports. Based on wartime reports, the Fairchild design tried to maximize ease of loading and unloading both troops and bulky cargo and to facilitate the efficient delivery of paratroopers into the battlefield. To these ends, Fairchild engineers laid out a twin-engine airplane with a central fuselage nacelle to carry crew, cargo, and personnel. Shoulder-mounted wings and engines provided low ground clearance for easy loading, with twin tail booms stretching back to the tail assembly. This layout permitted oversized, clamshell doors at the rear of the fuselage nacelle, facilitating the loading of heavy equipment such as field guns, light tanks, and trucks up to a weight of 11,500 pounds. As a troop carrier, the C–82 handled forty-two equipped paratroopers, and had a range of nearly four thousand miles with a top speed of 250 mph. The clamshell doors at the rear of the fuselage also permitted faster, safer parachute drops. The C–82 made its first flight in the autumn of 1944, but delivery of production models did not occur until September 1945, after the war’s end. Nonetheless, the Pack-et and its more famous successor, the C–119 Flying Boxcar (or Dollar-Nineteen), introduced in 1947, eventually set new standards for airlift operations. 

A new generation of four-engine transports was planned for intercontinental airlift. The first of these—the Douglas C–74 Globemaster—aggressively advertised its intended role through its name. Work on the Globemaster began early in the war, especially in anticipation of airlift requirements to come during the Pacific campaign. The design promised impressive performance for its day, cruising at around 300 mph and capable of missions spanning seventy-eight hundred miles. Military specifications called for the airplane to carry 125 combat-equipped soldiers or 115 stretchers for medical service. The C–74 was required to carry sixty thou-sand pounds of cargo and featured a self-contained loading system that used an electric elevator built into the center of the airplane’s cargo deck. The Douglas transport also housed a compartment for a galley, chef, and a relief crew for duty on longer flights. The prototype first flew several days after the end of World War II and the cancellation of wartime contracts resulted in a production run of only 14 aircraft. Nonetheless, the airplane’s size and impressive capability, plus strategic needs of the Cold War era, led to the Douglas C–124 Globemaster II. The new transport used the wing design, tail unit, and engine installations of its predecessor, and a production run of 448 airplanes led to several improved models capable of hauling seventy-four thousand pounds of cargo. With radar and clamshell doors in the nose, C–124 transports introduced a new era in versatility and productivity. 

Wartime experience and modern equipment supported many significant airlift operations in the postwar years. The Berlin Airlift of 1948–49 involved both military and civil aircraft. “Limited conflicts,” such as those that took place in Korea (1950–53) and Vietnam (1964–74), relied heavily on intercontinental and in-theater airlifts. Moreover, civil aviation support-ed national security requirements during World War II, contributing air-craft and personnel. Efforts to formalize this arrangement lagged until 1952, when the Civil Reserve Aircraft Fleet (CRAF) became a legal entity. The program committed funds of several million dollars over the intervening years to ensure that reinforced floors and cargo decks were built into a specified number of commercial aircraft that would be on call for the Air Force. During the Gulf War of 1990–91, some 150 CRAF aircraft served military operations, delivering as much as 25 percent of the air cargo and 60 percent of personnel arriving by air. As a national security asset, military airlift in the postwar era continued to demonstrate the values it pioneered during World War II.